The Soviet Union (officially “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” or “USSR”) is a major country and the leader of the Comintern faction. It is rich in both natural and human resources and has decent technology. It controls almost the entire northern third of Asia as well as the eastern edges of Europe.

This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.5.

Trotskyite Plot?

Stability: −20%

Paranoia and pathological distrust stemming from old power struggles impact the leadership of this nation.

Home of the Revolution

Ideology drift defense: +50%

Can create factions

Comrades, with the defeat of the vile Trotskyite counter revolutionaries we were able to focus on defending the revolution. Our goal, our hope, our slogan is Socialism in One Country. We will build a bountiful socialist utopia here in the Soviet Union and the rest of the world will inevitably embrace it.

This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.5.

1936 Scenario The player starts the game with 1.22M in manpower available and the monthly gain for manpower is 2.95k. The player starts with the Volunteer Only conscription law, providing 1.50% of the player's core population as manpower, totaling 2.42M. 1.13M of this manpower at game start is tied up in the army, 30.68k in the air force and 33.25k in the navy. The Soviet Union has a population of 161.43 million.

1936 Scenario: The player begins the game with 91 Infantry divisions, of which 18 are Reserve NKVD Divisions with Military Police. Additionally, the player has 22 Cavalry divisions, 13 Mountaineer divisions, 11 light tank divisions and 1 Motorized Infantry division. The player begins the game producing Infantry Equipment I at 36.19/day with 7 factories; Support Equipment 1 at 1.29/day on 2 factories; Towed Artillery at 5.17/week on 1 factory; Light Tank I at 6.78/week on 3 factories; and Motorized at 3.04/day on 3 factories. However, Motorized units lack rubber and have a penalty to production speed. The player has 18 additional military factories that can be allotted to production. The army is fairly average in the beginning, but the Soviet doctrine tree gives them a higher reinforce chance as well as either Large Front Operations or People's Army. It is up to the player upon reaching those decision points as to which line to pursue.

1936 Scenario: The player starts the game with only 3 Battleships, 4 Light Cruisers, 17 Destroyers and 43 Submarines. For production, the player only has 6 naval dockyards to begin with. The players dockyards are initially producing 4 Destroyer Is and 31 Submarine IIs, the latter across three separate production lines. While the player can cancel these productions, the first of the four destroyers is set to be completed by February 22nd, 1936 and all three of the Submarine lines are set to complete another sub by February 8th, 1936, so to avoid any loss of time and production, simply finish these in production before canceling or changing the lines to a different ship class. Naval technology at game start in 1936 includes all of the 1922 ship classes except for carriers, but none of the 1936 ship classes apart from submarines. The Soviets also start with the Naval Doctrine Fleet in Being, providing +10 organization to Battleships, Battlecruisers, and Heavy Cruisers.

1936 Scenario: The player begins in 1936 with 0 Close Air Support, 658 Fighters, 108 Naval Bombers, 0 Heavy Fighters, 240 Tactical Bombers, 72 Strategic Bombers and 0 Transport Planes. For production, the Soviet Union is only producing fighters with a single factory for 3.14/month and strategic bombers for 1.23/month on a single factory. The player lacks rubber, which reduces production speed. Obtaining rubber via trade should be one of the player's first priorities. For technology, the Soviets begin with 1936 Fighters, Naval Bombers and Strategic Bombers. Tactical Bombers are outdated 1933 models. The player lacks the technology for Heavy Fighters and Close Air Support. The player does not begin with any Air Doctrine in 1936 and has full choice over any of the three branches.

Josef Stalin's "Communism in one country" has failed; the rapid and violent industrialization policies of the 1920s and 1930s led to two massive famines in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan in 1921-1922 and 1932-1933, resulting in a great loss of lives and Stalin's political violence have cost the lives of many more people.
This calls for a reform of the government, one that will be put into effect by one Leon Trotsky, a former soviet politician who, after a failed power struggle with Stalin, was exiled to Mexico. But Trotsky still commands notable support within the Soviet government and unless these secret supporters are purged out, Trotsky will eventually make a comeback and kill Stalin to reclaim his position as the General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party, a position he was supposed to fulfill as per the late Vladimir Lenin's wishes.

In order to get Trotsky into power, when starting out as the Soviet Union in the 1936 bookmark, the player must not pick the National Focus The Great Purge at all, as picking it will lead to the Soviet leadership being purged of its old guard and being filled with pro-stalinists which will eventually lead to Trotsky being assassinated. If the Great Purge isn't carried out however, at some point in 1938, a series of events will start triggering, starting with "The Fourth International" and finally ending with "Trotsky returns to the Soviet Union" and "Trotsykist Coup". The last one of these events, the "Trotsykist Coup", will result in Stalin being killed and replaced by Leon Trotsky and a minor civil war will break out. This civil war should be relatively easy to win and once won, the player will now have access to Leon Trotsky, who grants access to a particularly devious strategy for playing as the Soviet Union.

Leon Trotsky possesses a leadership trait named "Permanent Revolutionary" which grants a -30% reduction to Foreign Subversive Activities cost. If the National Focus "Permanent Revolution" is taken, this bonus will be increased to a -50% price discount. In addition to that, completing said National Focus will unlock the National Focus "NKVD Primacy" and its follow-up "NKVD Divisions". These National Focuses will give a national spirit with the same name that also grants a -50% reduction to Foreign Subversive Activities cost.

While that alone may not sound very surprising, what is surprising is that the two price discounts from Trotsky's trait and national spirit will stack, giving a -100% discount to Foreign Subversive Activities Cost. What this means is that the Soviet Union will, once both of these bonuses have been acquired, possess the ability to start communist civil wars in other countries with no political power cost or time delay. When opening up the diplomacy view for a country, simply click the button "Stage a Coup", choose a state to start the coup in and BAM!, the civil war will immediately fire.

The ability to start communist civil wars on-demand opens up the possibility for a very unorthodox strategy for playing as the Soviet Union; rather than declaring wars of aggression and puppeting countries to spread communism, one can simply use the following steps to expand their dominion;

Use the diplomacy action "Boost Party Popularity" to increase popular support for Communism in a given country

Once the popular support is high enough, start a Communist civil war in said country

Invite the rebels into the Comintern

Join the civil war in defense of the rebels

Defeat the loyalist government, allowing the rebels to take over the country, landing a new member into the Comintern

The communist countries created from staged coups will gain control of all the territory owned by the country they originated from but with one major twist; since they are created as splinter nations through a script, they will not inherit the national focus tree of the original country if it had one. Instead, the new communist country will use the Generic National Focus tree, which essentially means that they will more or less become quasi-puppets of the Soviet Union as the Generic National Focus Tree causes them to become loyal faction members with no further aspirations than to serve their faction leader, in this case the Soviet Union, as the Generic National Focus Tree does not contain any National Focuses that would allow them to take aggressive actions against other nations by themselves, while simultaneously they will gladly join any war that they are called into, allowing the Soviet Union to more or less dictate their foreign policy.

This allows the Soviet Union to pull off some really cheeky geopolitical maneuvers. One example would be using the above schema to convert Poland and France to Communism. Since the newly-created Communist nations will use the Generic National Focus Tree, they will not do anything out of the ordinary and will, for all intents and purposes function like quasi-puppets. This will cause Germany to end up sandwiched between two Communist countries that are both members of the Comintern and thus host Soviet troops and if Germany declares war on either one, they will end up in a two-front war as the Soviet Union can join the war and, as the faction leader, call in the other Communist countries to join the fight.

Heck, the Soviets could even try targeting the Germans next with a communist missionary conversion by increasing communist support high enough and staging a coup. Since there is no time delay between staging the coup and the civil war breaking out, the coup can be initiated at any time and since there are two Comintern members bordering Germany, the Soviets can easily invade Germany to support the communist takeover.

Another similar (albeit more challenging) maneuver would be to systematically dismantle the Allies by starting civil wars in the United Kingdom and all of its dominions. If communist support is high enough, any targeted country will lose a large chunk of its territory, industry and military to a rebellious country that is hostile to it and can be invited into the Comintern by the Soviet Union and used by them as a staging ground for landing troops into the target country.

If the Soviets (after a couple of vodka shots) are feeling particularly daring, they could even attempt to target the United States by increasing communist support high enough and staging a coup. The United States has a rather weak starting military for a country of its size industry-wise and so should be very susceptible to a Soviet-backed coup attempt. This is a very risky strategy, as attacking the United States in any way, (whether that be directly or indirectly) will allow them to quickly get rid of the National Spirit "The Great Depression", thus allowing them to mobilize their economy and bring their military-industrial might to bear on any opponents. But if the Soviets can pull off a successful communist coup and convert the United States to Communism, they will now have an ally that is unrivaled in terms of industrial strength and could easily facilitate a global conquest from this point.